Alternate Universe: Part One (Revised)
by Icarii Enchantress
Summary: What happens if an alternate universe version of Karone ends up on Terra Venture?


Legal Disclaimer:   
If I owned them would I be writing fanfiction? Probably, but as I don't own them I just simply make up stories since I seemingly have no life. Saban owns these characters, except Karone "Kari" Valrae, the Omega Rangers, and anyone else that has never been mentioned in the history of Power Rangers.  
  
Authors Note:  
I have no idea where this story came from - it was probably from Mystic (my muse). She's been bugging me to attempt a Power Ranger's story, since I haven't done one in, oh, about a year. Anyway, I hope you like the story - it's kind of an alternate reality/action/etc - well, to be honest, I have no idea what it's generally about, so you'll have to just take it as it comes. I'm also putting a "how to pronounce Stefanie's funny names" thing at the beginning, and whenever I put a name of a person/place/thing that I want pronounced a certain way. Anyway, R&R, please (even if it is to tell me how crap it is). Oh, and if you would like to meet Mystic, my muse, she's under my profile. *Later, Stefanie   
  
PRONOUNCIATION   
Thare (thah-RAY)  
Valrae (vahl-RAY)  
  
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE  
PART ONE  
by Stefanie  
  
"You know," Maya said, laying in the grass next to her fellow Ranger friends, minus Karone who was off looking after the kids on Terra Venture. "It's a shame that everytime everyone else has time off from whatever we're doing, Karone always has to work."  
"Yeah, but you know her. She loves the kids," Leo replied.   
"Besides, it's volunteer work," Mike said tugging at the grass. "If she really wanted to time off she can take it."  
"I just feel so guilty relaxing while she's working, especially on today," Maya said shrugging.  
"Why today?" Kai asked sitting up.  
Maya's face clouded slightly as she sat up as well. "On Mirinoi, it would be a holiday. No one would be working. All the children would play, while their parents relaxed, waiting for the celebration feast that night."  
"Feast?" Damon's face lit up. "I could handle that."  
Everyone laughed. After they finished, they all drifted into silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Leo broke the silence.  
"You know, it's been a while since Trakeena attacked. She's up to something. I can feel it."  
"Don't worry so much, Leo," Kai said absently. "If she's planning something, we're more than ready for her - especially if we've had a relaxing day."  
"Yeah, little brother, don't jinx us," Mike said, cuffing Leo across his head with the back of his hand.  
"It's so peaceful here," Maya said, closing her eyes.  
Suddenly, a cloud of silver-ish smoke appeared in front of them, and a dirty, blonde-haired girl with torn clothes lay sprawled in front of them. Even though she looked weak, so jumped at the site of them, and moved away, tears forming in her eyes.  
The four rangers and Magna Defender stood there, their mouths open in shock. It wasn't the fact that she appeared before them in a cloud of smoke that had them staring. They reasoned that they stared was that right in front of them stood Karone, dirty, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and crying.  
Mike was the first to recover from shock. "Karone? What happened?"  
"Are you okay?" Maya asked walking to the couching girl.   
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"   
"Karone, we're only trying to help..." Damon started, before the girl, who stood a reasonable distance from them, wiping away tears, interrupted him.  
"How do you know my name?" she asked, the tears making her voice come in jagged breaks. Her voice was barely a whisper.  
They all looked at each other, confused.   
"Karone, we're your friends. Why don't you remember us?" Maya asked, slipping back into her state of shock. She'd already lost Kendrix, now she thought she was losing another friend. Leo gripped her arm, sensing that her mind was wandering, and brought her back to reality.  
They all turned when they heard footsteps behind them. They saw Karone, dressed in her usual black pants and top, clean, and happy, walking towards them. "Hey guys, what's..." her voice trailed off when she saw her exact likeness standing behind them.  
The Karone who'd appeared before them, sat down and hugged her knees, crying and muttering to herself. "Please let me wake up. Let this be fake. Please, please, please let it be a dream."   
"Who's that?" the real Karone asked, her voice kind of shaky from this appearance of herself.  
"As far as we can tell, her name's Karone, and she appeared in front of us in a cloud of silver smoke," Kai informed her.  
"And that she seems scared to death of us," Mike added absently, watching the other girl. "Ma'am, what's your name?" he asked the girl. He was crouching three feet from her, and wasn't making any sudden movements so as not to frighten her.  
She lifted her head slightly, revealing her eyes to be a stunning blue colour. At closer look, her hair also had red in it. "Karone Valrae. I'm an archaeologist from Thare."  
"Thare?" Damon asked. "Where's that?"  
"I don't know. Where's here?"  
"We don't know," Leo said, getting sick of the questions.  
"Then I can't tell you where Thare is, can I?" The girl was starting to get her confidence back with people she hardly knew at all. Mike started the introductions.   
"Well, Miss Valrae, nice to meet you. This over here" - he pointed to Leo - "is my brother Leo. That's Damon, Kai, Maya and Karone," he said pointing each person respectively. "And I'm..."  
"You're Michael Corbett," she said, interrupting him. Karone Valrae rose, her height showing that the only thing that matched her as Karone's twin was the resemblance of their faces. She was just under six feet, and now that the shock had left, her stance showed that she was a confident person and knew how to rationally handle situations.  
"Hey, how'd you know that?" Damon asked, confused.  
She shrugged, looking slightly shaken, but otherwise okay. "I just knew." She blushed. "I'm sorry for my behaviour a few minutes ago," she said, a small smile on her face. "But this is quite a shock to me. One minute I was fighting for my li..." Her smile disappeared, as she stopped herself from finishing what she started saying. "One minute I was studying a class on physics, the next I was here." She knew her story was weak, but it was the best she could come up with, and it was nearly the truth. Her right hand went to her left wrist, which had a silver coiled bracelet on it. The bracelet didn't connect fully at the base of her hand - it left about a one-centimetre gap. The left side of the bracelet, instead of connecting with the right side, turned up and ran up her lower arm for eight centimetres, and had a amethyst crystal embedded at the top. She seemed relieved to discover that she still had it on her wrist.  
Leo, Mike, Damon, Kai, Maya and Karone looked strangely at her. The realised what she was about to say - fighting for her life - but, sensing that she had a reason to hide what she said, they left it at that.  
Karone Valrae looked slightly uncomfortable, and tried to shrug it off. "Umm, is there somewhere that I can stay - just until I find out how to get back to my home?"  
"You could stay with us for a while," Maya offered.  
"Maya...I don't think..." Leo started.  
"Oh, I couldn't. You've been so kind to me already." Karone Valrae looked around her surroundings. "Where on your planet are we?" she asked, feeling something wrong with the landscape.  
The rangers all looked at each other. "We're not exactly 'on' our planet," Kai said.  
"Where are we?"  
"Well, like Leo said before, we don't know where we are. We're on a space station called Terra Venture," explained Kai. "We're trying to find a new planet - ours was becoming largely over-populated. Mike and I work in the command post."  
"Oh," Karone Valrae looked around again. "Pretty fancy space station if you ask me."  
***************************************************************************************************  
"Karone, could you help me with dinner, please?" Maya asked, and two heads turned.  
"This is going to be a little difficult," the pink ranger said, laughing.  
Karone Valrae looked thoughtful. "If it helps, you can call me Kari. It was a nickname my husb...my friends thought up for me." Again she hid the true reason. Only this time, the 2 female rangers didn't pick up on it.  
Maya nodded. "Kari it is. Now, Karone come and help me."  
"Coming," Karone said, getting up to help her. "So, Kari, what's your home planet like?"  
Kari's eyes seemed to brim with tears, before she hid them. "Thare is a wonderful place. It's mainly a water planet...umm, 79% water I think was the percentage, with a few continents and countries and stuff like that. My home was in Angel Beach, and it was situated on the coast. In winter and summer the water would always be warm enough to swim in." When Maya and Karone laughed at the the name of her home town, she explained, "An eccentric explorer landed there and thought he saw the ghost of a woman with wings and a halo, so he named the area Angel Beach. It's pretty funny, I know."  
"It sounds like a beautiful place," Karone replied, picturing the planet in her mind.  
"It was, up until last year, anyway," Kari said, her smile fading.  
"What happened?" Maya said as she finished up with the dinner and she and Karone came and sat next to Kari on the couch.  
"Last year, a powerful being who fought for peace, known as Zordon, was destroyed by the very people he had trusted." Seeing the stunned looks on the other girls faces, Kari asked, "What?"  
"Zordon? You're kidding, right?" Karone managed to choke out.  
"No, I'm not. Why? Have you heard of him?"  
"Zordon was a powerful being, but he was destroyed years ago," Maya said. "How could it be that where you are from, Zordon was alive for so many more years?"  
Kari shook her head. "I don't know. But before he was destroyed, our world was attacked by the first group of Omega Rangers - the Omega Alpha Rangers. Zordon had chosen them to fight evil, but they were captured by the enemy and turned evil, not even Zordon could reverse what had been done. They were very powerful, and once they started attacking the populace, Zordon recruited another group, and they were the Omega Delta Rangers. They were meant to defeat the evil rangers, and save the world." Kari fingered her bracelet. "I'm the last member of that team.'  
"You're a Power Ranger?" Maya asked increduously.  
Kari looked confused. "What's a Power Ranger?"  
"The Zordon we know of created different groups of Rangers, known to the populace as Power Rangers - the same as your Omega Rangers," Karone explained. "Everyone you met today is a Power Ranger, except Mike, he's the Magna Defender."  
Seeing Kari's pained look, Maya asked her, "What happened to your team?"  
"Pink and Green were killed in battle. Blue and Silver were kidnapped, tortured and eventually killed. Black was killed protecting me, just before I was transported here." Kari wiped tears from her eyes, and smiled a small smile. "He was always trying to protect me, and it was his biggest weakness.'  
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Karone asked, giving her a small hug.  
"I had no idea whether it was a trap to reveal myself as an Omega Ranger, or if it was real. I am truly sorry for the way I acted, and for lying to you."  
Suddenly, Maya remembered something. "Kari, how did you know who Mike was?"  
The sad smile that had graced Kari's face so many times that day reappeared. "It's a long story, and I had better tell it to you from the beginning..."  
***********************************************************************************************  
"It's no use!" Leo said, kicking back from the computer panel. "There is absolutely nothing in the computer database of the Megaship that mentions Thare. Nothing at all."  
"Keep trying, little brother," Mike said from across the room.  
"Mike, he's right, there's nothing there," Kai said. "As much as I hate to agree with him, it's true. All the planet indexes have all these things like the alternate realities of this or that planet. It would take ages to cross reference them to find anything."  
'Alternate reality...' Mike mumbled, as he tried to find a piece of paper and a pen. When he found one, he wrote down Thare. "Damn it!"  
"What?" Damon asked.  
"It's so simple. I don't know why we didn't see it before."  
"Well, feel free to let us in on this anytime, Mike," Leo said impatiently.  
Mike looked proud of himself. "Well, like Kai said, most of the planets in the index have information about the different reality versions of that planet."  
"Yeah, so?"  
"Well, did anyone look at Earth's alternate realities?" he asked. "Because if you rearrange the letters of Thare, it spells Earth."  
"I'm on it," Kai said, swinging back around to the computer.  
For a few minutes there was silence as Kai typed in a search and skimmed the content. "Bingo!"  
The other three were right behind him reading over his shoulder when Karone and Maya walked in.  
"Hey, you'll never guess what we've just found out," Leo said.  
"What?" Karone and Maya asked at the same time.  
"Our lovely guest is actually from an alternate reality of Earth," Damon said, beating Leo in who was going to say it first.  
Karone rolled her eyes. "Is that all? We already figured something out like that. No, we have bigger news."  
Kai looked disbelieving. "Bigger than this? This breaks all the laws of..."  
"Way bigger," Maya interrupted. "But first and foremost, she's that reality's equivalent of a Power Ranger. They were called Omega Rangers. Only her team were the Omega Delta Rangers."  
"That's your big news?" Mike asked.  
Karone smiled. "No. You're just going to love our big news, though. It seems when she introduced herself, she left out something pretty big."  
"Well, she didn't leave it out, but she 'forgot' to add something," Maya was on the verge of laughing. "Her name isn't Karone Valrae anymore. It hasn't been for three years."  
Leo looked impatiently at the two laughing girls. "What is it then?"  
"It's Karone Corbett."  
There was a stunned silence before Leo, Mike, Kai and Damon all said, "What?!"  
Leo and Mike looked at each other, then at Karone and Maya. Mike pointed at them, then at the couch. "Sit. Explain."  
"She was explaining this war that started on her planet. Apparently the first Omega Rangers - the Alpha team - were kidnapped and made evil but something she called Dasharah. Anyway, they were turned evil," Karone said as she settled herself on the couch. "The thing is, those rangers were also rangers in our time. When I was with the Andros, and the other rangers, I learnt a lot about the history of the rangers. The evil Alpha rangers are Kimberley, Jason, Zack, Trini, and Billy - the original rangers on Earth."  
"Okay, so what next?" Damon asked.  
Maya picked up the story. "When they were turned evil, they were sent to attack Earth, three years ago. Ever since then, Thare has been in constant war. Just over a year ago, the Zordon in Kari's reality..."  
"Kari?" Kai looked confused, as did the others.  
"Karone Valrae," Karone said, then grinned evilly. "Or should I say Karone Corbett?"  
"Karone, shh," Maya said elbowing her friend. "Back to the story. Her Zordon created a new group of rangers - the Delta team. This is where it gets very interesting. Karone was...is...the Purple ranger. Katherine Hillard was the Silver ranger, and Rocky deSantos was the Blue ranger. Adam was the Green Ranger,"  
"There were only four?" Mike asked, looking curious.  
"Shh, I haven't finished, Mike," Maya reprimanded the Magna Defender. "The last two rangers were Black and Pink. Mike you were Black, and Kendrix was Pink."  
"Kendrix?"   
"Mike?"  
"Huh?" Mike looked confused.  
Kai looked again at Karone and Maya. "What about the rest of us?"  
Maya looked at Karone. "Well, technically, she's Karone, just human and married to Mike, and has a degree in science, and had just recieved a promotion in the Air Force - or the equivalent of what you explained to me about the Air Force."  
"Maya, you're babbling," Karone pointed out.  
"Married?" Mike practically choked it out.  
"She's twenty-one," Maya pointed out.  
"And as far as she knows, the rest of you don't exist," Karone said, ignoring Mike and Maya. "The only thing is, she's the last ranger from her team. Everyone was killed - Mike just before she was transported here, Kendrix and Adam were the first to be killed, then Rocky and Katherine."  
Leo whistled. "If that's not enough to make you go insane, what is?"  
"Where is she anyway?' Damon asked.  
"Sleeping, I think," Karone replied, shrugging.  
  



End file.
